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Australian Qualifying Quotes I

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel (1st, Q3 – 1m 23.529s)
“We all tried to work our way around the Pirelli tyres and coming here we’re all impressed by how they’re working on one lap and also when there’s more fuel in the car.”

“It’s promising for Sunday, so we’ll see how we get on. We have made the first step and starting the season this way with a pole position is a good sign for the team.”

Mark Webber (3rd, Q3 – 1m 24.395s)
“I was disappointed with my performance today. Sebastian put in a very good lap. I’m a little bit mystified by the gap to be honest, I tried my best.”

“Obviously it wasn’t the best day for me, but the bar is high. I would like to have done better, but reflecting on the performance of the team and what they’ve done over the winter – it’s incredible.”

Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal
“A great team performance. First and third for the first grand prix of 2011 is a very good start. Sebastian produced two stunning laps.”

McLarenLewis Hamilton (2nd, Q3 – 1m 24.307s)

“I was really happy with my lap today. The car felt fantastic”

“We still have some work to do, but I think the race is winnable from here – and I’ll be giving Sebastian the race of his life tomorrow!”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“Yesterday indicated that the car improvements we’d made in the past few weeks were significant, and today proved it. I therefore want to say a big thank you to all the guys here in Melbourne, and back in Woking”

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso (5th, Q3 – 1m 24.974s)
“Clearly, we cannot be happy with this result, but we must not immediately make a drama out of it.”

“McLaren seems to have made a good step forward, but you should not dismiss Mercedes either, who were impressive at the last Barcelona test.”

Felipe Massa (8th, Q3 – 1m 25.599s)
“We were less competitive than we could rightly have expected and there’s no doubt about that.”

“My spin in Q3? When I came out of pit lane, I accelerated and the tyres were evidently still too cold: the set was not damaged for the race, but it was definitely not a help on my only flying lap.”

Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari team principal
“We definitely cannot be happy with the way things went in this first qualifying session of the season and there is no denying it. However, there is no point in immediately getting into a state about it.”

“This year, more than at any time in the recent past, strategy will hold the key, while reliability, as ever, remains the number one priority.”

Renault
Vitaly Petrov (6th, Q3 – 1m 25.247s)
“After all the hard work during a very tough winter for the whole team, it feels great to come here and qualify on the third row.”

Nick Heidfeld (18th, Q1 – 1m 27.239s)
“I’m disappointed to be starting the season from so far back. As we have seen with Vitaly, the car seems to have good pace and the race is wide open, so hopefully I can move forward and fight for points.”

Mercedes GPMichael Schumacher (11th, Q2 – 1m 25.971s)
“Clearly that was not an ideal start to the season, and I cannot deny that I am disappointed.”

“From our testing experience, we were around the pace of Ferrari, however this did not translate today. We now have to look deeply into it to understand why it turned out to be like this, because for the moment we are not where we wanted to be.”

Ross Brawn, Mercedes GP team principal
“Without doubt, today was quite a disappointing qualifying session for the team. We expected to be more competitive however we haven’t got the car working as well as we had hoped today.”

“The car looked pretty reasonable on the longer runs so let’s wait and see what happens.”